Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, 1st Count Jourdan, was a French military commander who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
30 Facts About Jean-Baptiste Jourdan
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was made a Marshal of the Empire by Emperor Napoleon I in 1804.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was a Jacobin politician during the Directory phase of the French Revolution, serving as member of the Council of Five Hundred between 1797 and 1799.
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One of the most successful commanders of the French Revolutionary Army, Jourdan is best remembered in the Revolution for leading the French to a decisive victory over the First Coalition at the Battle of Fleurus, during the Flanders campaign.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was the only surviving child of Roch Jourdan, a surgeon originally from Meyrargues, and Jeanne Foreau-Franciquet.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's mother died at childbirth when he was two years old, and after being raised by his father for a few years, Jourdan was put under the care of an uncle, the Abbe Laurent Jourdan, a parish priest who ran a boarding school in Beaurecueil, in Provence.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's father died when he was nine years old, at around 1771, leaving Jourdan as an impoverished orphan.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan spent the rest of the year with the regiment in Ile de Re before it departed for the war in America.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan first saw action at the capture of Granada in mid-1779.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan took part in the successful defense of the recently captured island of Saint Vincent, in 1780, and in the invasion of Tobago in 1781.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was appointed lieutenant of the chasseurs of the National Guard in 1790, and when the National Assembly asked for volunteers, Jourdan was elected commander of the 9th battalion of volunteers from Haute-Vienne.
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Historian Michael Glover writes that the first day's attack was a failure because of Carnot's interference, while the second day's success resulted from Jean-Baptiste Jourdan using his own tactical judgment.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was saved from certain execution when an eyewitness, representative on mission Ernest Joseph Duquesnoy rose and contradicted Carnot's version of events at Wattignies.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan failed to salvage the situation at the Battle of Wurzburg and was forced over the Rhine after the Battle of Limburg, which cost the life of General Francois Severin Marceau.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was nevertheless made the scapegoat and was not employed for two years.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan resumed his political duties and was a prominent opponent of the Coup of 18 Brumaire, after which he was expelled from the Council of Five Hundred.
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In 1800, Jean-Baptiste Jourdan became inspector-general of cavalry and infantry and representative of French interests in the Cisalpine Republic.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan remained in the newly created Kingdom of Italy until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte, whom his brother made King of Naples that year, selected Jourdan as his military adviser.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan followed Joseph into Spain in 1808; but Joseph's throne had to be maintained by the French Army, and throughout the Peninsular War, the other marshals, who depended directly upon Napoleon, paid little heed either to Joseph or to Jourdan.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was blamed for the defeat at the Battle of Talavera in 1809 and replaced by Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was reinstated as Joseph's chief of staff in September 1811 but given few troops.
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Repeatedly outmaneuvering the French, the Anglo-Allied army forced Joseph and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan to fight at the Battle of Vitoria on 21 June 1813, during which Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's marshal's baton was captured by the British.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan adhered to the first Bourbon Restoration, in 1814, but joined Napoleon on his return to power during the Hundred Days and was appointed commander of Besancon.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan submitted to the Bourbons again after the final French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was made a count, a Peer of France in 1819, and governor of Grenoble in 1816.
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In politics, Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was a prominent opponent of the royalist reactionaries and supported the Revolution of 1830.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan died in Paris on 23 November 1833 and was buried in Les Invalides.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan has thus afforded an example of that praiseworthy elevation of mind which distinguishes men one from another.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan is a true patriot; and that is the answer to many things that have been said of him.
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Jean-Baptiste Jourdan wrote Operations de l'armee du Danube, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire sur la campagne de 1796, and unpublished personal memoirs.